LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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<QEOBGE ALBERT WILSON 



VERSATILE f\ 



" For all men, indeed, 

Who in some choice edition may graciously read, 
With fair illustration, and erudite note, 
The song which the poet in bitterness wrote, 
Beat the poet, and notably beat him, in this — 
The joy of the genius is theirs, whilst they miss 
The grief of the man." 

— Oweji Meredith. 



r 



NYACK-ON- HUDSON 
PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR 



%yM 



1894 









Copyright by 
GEORGE ALBERT WILSON., 



'journal" press, nyack-on hudson. 
Bound at the Oxford Bindery. 



To M. I B. 

This little book I dedicate to thee, 
With love as deep as e'er was sounding sea. 
'T is not a paltry gift I Yjueath, and yet 
It leaves unpaid the whole of Friendship's 

debt! 
To thee this scrip of stumbling verse, the 

whole 
I dedicate, and on my heart's flesh-scroll 
These words I write : " Behold the marv'lous 

pow'r 
Of Friendship, gift of God — His priceless 

dow'r ! " 



Salutatory. 

So many minds of great, undoubted worth 
Have trod the path that leads to heav'n 
from earth, 
I fain my hand would hold : 
So many men of genius, rich and rare, 
Have reached Olympia — seen the glories 
there — 
To emulate were bold. 

So many think the gift the gods bestow — 
A patch of sunshine in dark meads below — 

Is theirs — illusion vain! — 
That those to whom ambrosial joys are 

known 
Communion with the gods are loth to own, 

Lest they the guild profane. 

So halting is my verse, and inchoate 
The talent I devote to mission, great, 
I blush to own my Muse: 



So slender seems the thread that to me 

binds 
Its words of passion, modesty reminds 
Me I may but abuse. 

So meagre is my ken of poets' ways — 
Their strained effects that meet a wond'ring 
praise, 

Their strict exclusiveness — 
I fear my plebeian pen may shame reflect 
On noble gods' and Nature's own elect 

With its effusiveness. 

My stilted style, at times, may mirth evoke 
From those who lighter things invoke 

To satiate their minds ; 
And sentiments I write in meek duress 
To thoughts that banish happiness 

Had better woo the winds. 

Some verses, penned ere youth's enthrall 
was o'er, 



May pity for my Muse inspire — no more : 

Yet such I 'd not disclaim ! 
Who walks erect ere gone are creep -taught 

days : 
Who lubricates the ear of king with praise — 

Except thro' falls and shame ? 

And if, perchance, too oft my thoughts 

recur 
To subjects other than those men prefer — 

To gloomy things, and sad — 
The pardon of the reader I implore : 
Far from me be it thus to probe the sore 

Of years, or sorrow add. 

If, then, with trembling heart, 'twixt hope 

and fear. 
From haven, mine, to critic wastes, and 

drear, 
This little tome I send, 



Condone the anxious fear — forgive the hope 
That may my eye, of single purpose, ope 
To truth: firm foe — fast friend! 

The Author. 
Nyack-on-Hudson , 
October i, 1894. 

Born Pennington, N. J., 1874. 



Tabic of Contents. 





PAGE. 


The Author .... 


Frontispiece. 


To M. I. B. 


vii 


Salutatory - - - - 


ix 


Poems of Patriotism. 




Decoration Day 


19 


Memorial Blossoms - 


20 


A Memorial Aftermath - 


24 


Heroes Yet .... 


27 


Independence Day 


31 


Shall We Give Up the Flags ? - 


36 


My Country 


38 


Cardiac Concepts. 




Dreamland .... 


43 


Thanksgiving- Violets 


45 


I " Saw " My Loved One Home 


47 


Her Photograph 


49 


Largesse and Dying Embers 


50 


I Dreamed My Love Was Dead 


5i 


Unrequited Love 


53 


A Valentine 


57 


Birthday Greeting— To M. I. B. 


58 


In Golden Fetters 


60 


Heart's Content 


62 


No Future But Thee - 


- 64 


Just Sixteen Years Ago To-Day 


66 


Forget-Me-Not 


68 


A Valentine— To A. L. D. 


69 


The Old Love's Claim - 


71 


My Love and I 


73 



Brighter Than the Stars - - - 75 

Four Years Ago .... 76 

I Cannot Sin . .... 78 

Just As Thou Art ! - 79 

Enchanted Ground .... 80 

A Letter ..... 82 

My Queen ..... 84 

Spiritual Selections. 

During a Snow-Storm ... 91 

The Quiet Hour - - - - 92 

Retribution ..... 95 

New Year Resolutions .... 97 

A Negative Thanksgiving ... 99 

A Prodigal's Return - - - - 101 

My Evening Prayer .... 102 

Easter ...... 105 

" A Little Child Shall Lead Them " - 107 

A Soliloquy - - - . no 

An Easter Anthem - - - - 112 

Memorial and Personal. 

Mrs. Harrison - - - -. - 117 

James Gillespie Blaine -, - - 119 

Gen. John A. Logan .... 121 

Lord Alfred Tennyson - - - 123 

Edward Everett Hale - - - 124 

Ella Wheeler Wilcox ... 125 

Miscellaneous. 

A Pneumatological Query - - - 129 

Christmas ..... 131 

" '92 and '93 " 133 

The Poet's Make-up - - 134 

Destiny - - - . . 135 



Unreality - - - - - 136 

Waiting - - - - . - 137 

Thought - - - 139 

To a Little Child - - - - 141 

Beyond the Tears .... 142 

Thrice Happy He .... 144 

A Query .... - 145 

While on the Hook Mountain - - 146 

Thanksgiving- ----- 14S 

A Hallowe'en Recipe ... - 150 

Spring Apostrophizes - - - 152 
The Drum ------ 154 

The Judge's Decision - - - 156 

That Quizzing Blizzard - - 158 

Ineffectual Genius .... 160 

The Press ------ 162 

Despair ------ 164 

The Italian Match Boy - - -166 

Quatrains - - - ... 168 

Athens' Detection - - . - - 169 

A Retrospect - - - - - 171 

Romping Rhyme - - - - - 172 

Summer Days Are On the Wane - 175 

When Old Age Comes On - - 17S 

" E'en Tho' It Be a Cross " - - 180 
L'Envoi ------ 183 



Poems of Patriotism 



Decoration Dag. 



The day has come when hearts must bend 

In grim, yet glorious, grief: 
When to Death's city, white, we send 

Our tributes. On a leaf 
Of Time's volum'nous scroll we grave, 

In letters blurred with tears, 
The names of those — the gallant brave — 

Who knew no puling fears. 
We deck with Nature's treasures mounds 

'Neath which our soldiers sleep : 
No reveille for them resounds 

Again. 

The shadows creep 
Athwart the sky. The day is past : 

Those dreaming 'neath the sod 
Ne'ermore shall war in blue cuirassed — 

Our heroes live with God ! 



19 



JVIemorial Blossoms. 



Read at the exercises of ■ Waldron Post, 82, G. A. R. r 
Nyack-on-Hudson, Memorial Day, 1892, by Miss Fannie 
Blauvelt. 

What mem'ries cluster 'round the day, 

To loyal hearts, and true. 
That tells of Blue against the Gray, 

And|Gray against the Blue. 
It speaks of fields of carnage where 

The battle-smoke hung low : 
And shrieks of anguish rent the air 

From many a sick'ning blow ; 
When foemen, won from brotherhood 

By insurrection's cry, 
Stood firm, or fell in welt'red blood, 

Heroic deaths to die ; 
When came the clash of arms, and war 

Seemed all that then remained: 
But when the storm-cloud had passed o'er 

The Union was sustained ! 
Sustained ! but at a fearful cost 



Of bloodshed and of life : 
The Union, dark and tempest-'os't, 

Had felt fell treason's knife ! 
Sad memories the day recalls 

Of comrades borne away 
On stretchers from hospital walls — 

To rest till that great day 
When come from out the moss-grown tomb 

The great and good of years, 
To shake off scenes of darkened gloom — 

Exchange for smiles their tears. 
And many comrades gathered 'round 

The campfire's lurid glow. 
And, seated on the parent ground, 

Sang songs in voices, low. 
Their theme was u Home," of loved ones 
there 

Who watched till they returned; 
And many prayed for sweethearts, fair. 

For whom their whole souls yearned ; 
And ; Tramp, Tramp, Tramp," made 



many a heart 

With martial fire to leap, 
While u Annie Laurie" played its part, 

Tiil nil were wrapped in sleep. 
But many a father waited long 

Ere came his soldier boy, 
And many a mother's heart, so strong, 

Was rilled with Spartan joy. 
Now, Decoration Day is come 

To keep the past in mind, 
And, 'mid the roll of muffled drum, 

Sweet buds on graves we bind. 
But, as we lay these fragrant flowers 

On many a warrior's mound, 
We bear in mind not only ours 

Are those beneath the ground — 
The Nation for whose flag they fought 

And bled, till stern death came, 
Has, by that act, a title bought : 

A higher, nobler claim ! 
Ad is now past : all is forgiv'n r. 



And in the grave of years 
We bury hearts once torn and riv'n. 

And cover all with tears. 
And, as the broken columns move, 

Anon, with falt'ring tread, 
We'll show a Nation's heartfelt love 

For its heroic dead. 
To-day the Blue salutes the Gray, 

And arm in arm they twine : 
Blossoms on Decoration Day 

Are laid at Freedom's shrine. 



23 



A JVlemorial Aftermath. 



Winding among the mounds of earth. 

Each with its tale to tell, 
March men, and children hush their mirth, 

While, deep-bass, tolls the bell. 

And then the band strikes up a dirge, 
And hearts, that ne'er knew fear, 

Swell up, with an impetuous surge, 
While falls the silent tear. 

And then. — But hark : " Right shoulder 
arms ! " 

Rings out upon the air ; 
And vet'rans, feeling long-dead charms, 

Obey, and onward bear. 

The sun sends down his piercing rays, 

Bathing in warmth the ground, 
Just as he did in those dark days 

When roared the cannon's sound. 

24 



But, of the men who marched ahead, 

In spite of shot and shell, 
Many are camping 'mong the dead — 

Buried right where they fell. 

A woman bends beside the tomb 

Of one once dear to her : 
Who tramped away, in youthful bloom, 

A dashing officer. 

Then came the news : a rebel shot 

Struck Charlie to the ground ! 
That moment's shock she ne'er forgot — 

Unhealing was its wound. 

They bore him home and laid his form 

Beneath the sighing trees ; 
There now he lies, in rain and storm, 

And in the autumn breeze. 

The guns may roar, the cannons crack, 
Beneath the heavens, starr'd : 

25 



He 's in the last grand bivouac, 
Inside the old church-yard. 

Yes, oft she comes to see her dead, 

The love of by-gone years : 
O'er his dear grave sweet flowers to spread, 

Bedewing all with tears. 

There leave her with her long-dead boy, 

Sleeping beneath the sod : 
She buried ev'ry earthly joy 

When he went home to God. 

And, as the slow procession twines 

Away 'mid gath'ring gloom, 
She sinks among the tendril vines — 

Tear- wedded to the tomb. 



26 



]-leroes Yet. 



Read at the exercises of Waldron Post, 82, G. A. R., 
Nyack-on-Hudson, at Oak Hill Cemetery, Memorial Day, 
1894, by Miss Fannie Blauvelt. 

Heroes they were in '61, 

And now, in '94, 
A Nation's: u Comrades, thou 'st well done, 

And turned the hand of war — 
With blood a-reek, and broken hearts 

Plethoric in its wake!'' — 
A sense of gratitude imparts 

That naught can ever shake. 
The debt we owe our honored dead 

Can never be repaid : 
Priceless the blood of heroes shed 

Who never sheathed the blade ! 
How puerile seems our sentiment, 

Compared with that desire 
Nurtured by men, on valor bent, 

Who charged through blood and fire, 

And stormed the hosts that wore the gray, 

27 



Nor stopped to think of fear, 
But carried on the Flag of Day — 

The Stars and Stripes — so dear 
To ev'ry heart attuned to love 

Of home, God, native land. 
No love of ours can e'er remove 

Our obligation, grand ! 
Full many a field in glist'ning stars 

Beheld bright prototypes : 
For one host waved the rebel Bars — 

The other streamed the Stripes. 
The angels paused their sweeping swell 

Of harmony divine, 
And dwelt upon the raging hell 

Of warriors, 'rayed in line. 
Then God — the God alike of peace 

And unrelenting war — 
Looked down : bade sullen strife surcease, 

And stopped the leaden pour. 
Shall we a Nation's love withhold 

From those who fought as these ? 

28 



Far rather let their fame be told 

In ev'ry passing breeze ! 
Let ev'ry bird that sings to-day, 

As men pass in review, 
Chirp joyfully, because the Gray 

Is merged into the Blue. 
We garland graves with many a bud 

That Nature deigns to yield 
In love for those who gave their blood 

When Liberty appealed. 
The Nation's emblem vigil keeps 

Over the hero's grave : 
The Nation's heart stands still and weeps — 

For it he died to save ! 
Far back, along the centuries' wake, 

One died that all might live 
Who would but on them gladly take 

His yoke — obedience give, 
We have, to-day, exemplars, grand, 

Of that Oblation, true, 
The men who died for flag and land — 

2q 



Who wore the Union blue. 
We weep, and yet our eyes are dry : 

We mourn, bat make no sound : 
The brave who sleep can never die, 

E'en tho' the dampened ground 
Their forms may, in firm embrace, hold : 

A white stone o'er the head : 
They tramp, tramp, tramp the streets of 
gold— 

The brave are never dead ! 
As comes again Memorial Dav 9 

And flags and flowers are due, 
IV e weep for the misguided Gray, 

And for our Boys m Blue. 



30 



Independence Day. 



Read at the celebration at Nyack-on-Hudson, 1S94, 
by the Rev. J. B. Taylor. 

" Old Glory " waves its tri-hued folds 
Over the land that ever molds 

The good, the brave, the true : 
How dear each thread that Freedom wove 
Into the woof and warp of love 

For red, and white, and blue ! 

But long before the dreamer dreamed 
Of Stars and Stripes o'er brave men 
streamed, 

Its spirit, brave, had life : 
For Freedom's heart was ever warm — 
Its pulse beats ever uniform — 

Its soul with unrest rife. 

Our fathers' fathers chafed beneath 

The yoke of Britain, and the wreath 

Of vict'ry, laurel-crown'd, 



Was hung upon the stripe-cros't staff- 
Liberty's air was theirs to quaff — 
Their right as men they found ! 

Found? Yes — and more than that — they 

gained 
Their right, and many a field, blood-stained 

To it sad witness bears ! 
With patriotic blood ran red 
Dark streams, beside which lay their dead. 

A noble fight was theirs ! 

As runs the course of human love 
The way of roughness not above — 

So with our love for land : 
From first inception, struggling seemed 
The legacy the gods best deemed 

Our portion to command ! 

The echoes, deep, of Bunker Hill 

A lodgment find in brave hearts still — 

Their roll can never cease ! 
32 



And many a Jasper now would leap 
Into the fire of hell to keep 

From shame the flag of peace ! 

We love the uniform they wore : 
We love the brave for love they bore 

Our country, first and last ! 
We love the spirit born among 
Dales where ^Eolus' harp was strung, 

And measured to the blast. 

We love the thought that love was theirs — 
A love for liberty that dares 

To scorn a compromise ! 
We love the brave because thev trod 
The soil o'er which proud Freedom's God 

Stretches His bluest skies ! 

With that republic-twin's,* on whom 
So late has fallen hand of gloom, 



*France. The obsequies of M. Marie Sadi Carnot, 
President of the Republic, had just taken place. 

33 



America's tears blend : 
We know full well affliction's woe, 
When Union's lamp has flicker'd low, 

And hearts of men unbend. 

And tho' full oft in splendor spread, 
Our flag has dip'd its regal head 

Betore t h e face of Mors : 
Who mourned not when good Lincoln died, 
When Garfield crossed the Lethan tide 

Where man knows not the shores ? 

We little know what bloodshed means 
And far less of its carnage scenes — 

Its horror and its woe : 
But we have those who bore the brunt 
Of bitter warfare at the front 

To thank that it is so ! 

.No more the battle cloud hangs dun : 
No more obscured is glare of sun : 
No more the cannon's sound : 

34 



Peace, lily-beautified, prevails : 
Peace, in whose sight e'en fierce Mars 
quails : 
Peace — powerful, profound I 



ss 



Shall We Give Up the Flags ? 



Dedicated to (then) Governor J. B. Foraker of Ohio, 
veteran-statesman, whose position against the order of the 
Executive— that all stands of colors taken from belligerent 
Confederates, during the " late unpleasantness," be re- 
turned to the States represented by the ensigns at the 
time of bellicose relations — aroused the latent indignation 
of the citizens— especially the veterans — of the North, and 
resulted in the ill-timed, unprecedented order being re- 
scinded. 



Shall we give up flags so dearly — hardily r 
as were these, — bought : 

Taken from the hands of traitors who to 
knife the Union sought ? 

Shall we give — reward to treason — trophies 
of its shame and fall, 

Won on fields of knightly valor by the 
brave who knew the call 

Of their country, sore distressed, and an- 
swered as all patriots would 

With their banner, proud, insulted by a fel- 
low-brotherhood ? 

36 



By an act of legislation, all this would be 
done away ! 

And the traitors stand as arrogantly as be- 
fore that day 

When the flag that shadowed Sumter in its 
folds of heav'nly hue 

Was assailed by guns full-shotted — God ! 
our red ! our white ! our blue ! 

Shall the State, in puerile meekness, then 
forget, though it forgive, 

And insult the men who fought and, 'spite 
the rebel onslaught, live ? 
Washington, D. C, 1886. 



37 



]V[y Couptry! 



My country — beautiful, supreme,, 
As ever blessed Utopian dream — 

My country, loved, revered ! 
May aught that seeks to overthrow 
My country happiness ne'er know, 

And withered be, and sered ! 

My country ! ev'ry fierce pulse-beat 
That throbs, with Vulcan's hottest heat r 

Through these, our bodies, free, 
Leaps high at mention of thy name, 
And glories in thy peerless fame — 

Our first love is with thee ! 

" My country! right or wrong," the same I 
My country! naught shall ever shame 

Thy shield, while brave men live I 
We pride in all that speaks of thee — 
One land, one flag, from sea to sea — 

What glory dost thou give ! 



My country! poet, tune thy song 
To metes that to its love belong — 

My country ! sacred land! 
My country ! ev'ry foe disarmed ! 
My country ! by each rift unharmed ! 

My country — mount and strand! 



39 



darcliac Concepts 



Dreamland. 



Ecstatic gladness fills me, 
A joyful tremor thrills me, 
When, worn with toil, I hasten to its love- 
embowered domain ; 
Sweet calm steals o'er my spirit 
Whene'er I venture near it — 
The land of dreams of days gone by, where 
life is young again. 

Forgot is all repining : 
I've found the silver lining 
That ev'ry cloud of sorrow has, although so 
black it seems ; 
With long-dead friends communing, 
While Mem'ry's lyre is tuning — 
What happiness to wander in the vista-land 
of dreams. 

Old loves to new life waking, 
The long years' silence breaking, 

43 



And recollections stirring that I hoped, ere 
this, were dead : 
Yet, were it mine — the choosing 
Of keeping or of losing — 
The dream-god oft would visit me and 
. heav'nward lift my bed. 



44 



Thapksgiving Violets. 



Some azure guests from summer-land, 

Preserved through wintry blasts, 
Came to me in the mail to-day. 

They show that feeling lasts. 
Though she who sent them from afar 

My features cannot see ; 
To glad my sight she cared so much 

I know she thought of me. 

May others choose the golden rod, 

Gay monarch of the fall ; 
While some may hold the blushing rose 

The queen is of them all. 
Let each one name the flower the heart 

Warms toward — all else forget — 
And welcome to it ! for my part 

I love the violet. 

Blessed with the pearly tints of heav'n, 
Tho' deeper be the tint, 

45 



It seems that God to them has giv'n 

His favors, without stint. 
Unspeaking, they exemplify 

The good, the pure, the true ; 
Their simple splendors please the eye- 

These friends of mine in blue. 

When I was but a little lad, 

And ''said my A B C's," 
A little cup was given me, 

My unformed tastes to please. 
And "Love the Giver" was inscribed 

On it in deepest blue : 
Now, while I love the violet, 

I love the giver, too. 



4 6 



I " Saw " My Liovcd One f-lome. 



I've wandered from the church at home. 

Into the world's broad fields, 
Yet, at the dawn or in the gloam, 

A recollection shields 
Me from the snares that, eager, wait 

To trap me as I roam — 
Of when I waited at its gate 

To " see " my loved one home. 

The days now come, the days now pass, 

Thick-crowded with events. 
Yet oft I think of that sweet lass 

Who met me at the fence. 
A talisman, my fears to charm, 

If tos't on ocean's foam — 
The thought of when I took her arm 

And " saw " my loved one home. 

I ride o'er mountain, hill and plain : 

Beside swift-rolling streams, 
And mem'ry brings back, o'er again, 



47 



Those restful, soothing dreams. 
But, as the ev'ning shadows fall, 

And day sinks into gloam, 
I hear the old-time's glad recall — 

I " saw " my loved one home ! 
The future all uncertain lies : 

I would not know her ways — 
I fain would learn, as a surprise, 

Events now thick 'neath haze. 
Yet, tho' I rise, or tho' I fall, 

The thought will ever come 
Of when, from that vine-trellised wall, 

I "saw" my loved one home. 
I know not if I'll see again 

This distant love of mine ; 
Nor yet the happy moment when 

Our fortunes we'll combine. 
But sure am I, when next we meet, 

Beneath high heaven's dome, 
My aspirations I'll repeat — 

And " see " her to my home ! 
4 8 



Jler Photograph. 



'T is but a little photograph : 
Yet, tho' all El Dorado's gold 

Were scattered 'fore me like the chaff, 
I would not yield it to be sold. 

In it true beauty sits enshrined r 
Before which I devoutly bow * 

While tresses, fretting in the wind r 
Expose her intellectual brow. 

The sweeping eyebrows, slightly raised, 
Reveal her twin-star laughing eyes 

Into whose depths I ne'er have gazed 
But to repress my soul's sad sighs. 

Well might proud Venus bend the knee 
Before this northern beauty's throne — 

Yea, that, and more, do L to thee, 
And thank high Heaven for its loan. 



49 



bargesse and Dying En?bers. 



They come to me — yes, once again. 

Over the chasm of Time — 
Those hours of joy and sunshine when 

Existence was sublime. 
And, in the largesse of my love, 

All else below fell far : 
Each tone knew naught of joy above, 

Nor discord there to mar. 

But, as to ashes burns the fire, 
When past is fiercest heat, 

So did her love for me expire : 
Absinthine was my sweet. 

And straitway on a journey went 
This burnt-out frame of mine ; 

Heart's pliant gold was shapeless bent- 
Naught else can it refine. 



so 



1 Dreamed ]V[y bove Was Dead 



I dreamed my love was dead, and dead 

Was all the joy I 'd sought ; 
I heard the last sweet words she said, 

And noted down the thought. 
Then fell her form back on the bed: 

A wan, sweet smile I caught, 
Just as her trusting spirit fled 

To realms which God has wrought 

A final sigh escapes her lips, 

Her bosom heaves once more ; 
And fast her hold on life, this, slips — 

Drifting upon that shore 
In one of those God-guided ships, 

With Faith's flag at the fore : 
Then firm this jewel grim Death grips — 

And life's pained days are o'er. 

Her corse I followed to the grave, 
My heart bowed down with grief ; 



I tried to bear up and be brave,, 
But Death, the Silent Thief, 

Had ta'en my love to that conclave 
Of which none knows the Chief, 

And, to my blighted hopes a slave,. 
I sought nor found relief. 

Her very presence filled the air : 

Her virtues were my theme ; 
Where'er I looked, her image, there, 

Shone, as a fair sunbeam. 
By darkest night, in noon-day's glare,, 

Her death-pall was supreme : 
But I awoke, in deep despair — 

And found it all a dream. 



5* 



Unrequited Ltove- 



I wonder why that all around 
Drink life's joy to their fill : 
My life is gloom — 
The breathless tomb 
With song is not more still. 

Ah, Love, why didst thou seek my heart 
And fill with thy joy? 
My hopes are dead, 
And now, instead, 
My gold is all alloy. 

Why did I seek for rest in thee, 
My idol and my love? 
You love me not — 
'T were best forgot 
And risen far above. 

Forgot ? Nay, never, while there be 
A heaven and God above ! 

.53 



I'll not forget 
When first we met, 
And thee I learned to love. 

Learned ? No, that is not the word r 
Love came as birds in Spring — 

Unbidden by 

A look, a sigh: 
Withal, a welcome thing. 

I threw my heart's door open wide, 
To let the new face in ; 

When I said : " Go ! " 

She answered : " No — 
Your heart I strove to win ! " 

"But, leave !" I cried, " My love loves not : 
The granite is less cold ! " 
She would not leave ; 
I 'm doomed to grieve — 
O'er what was once fine gold. 

Others may at Diana's throne 
54 



Pay tribute at her shrine : 

But I must wait 

Till opes the gate 
Where glad death shall be mine. 

Aye, welcome Guest, come ! take me where 
I hear no love song's trill : 

But, even there, 

A thought I'll bear — 
I love my idol still ! 

u To ev'ry lad his lassie-love," 
A poet sang of old : 

The love I crave 

No rest e'er gave — 
Methinks all hearts are cold. 

My earthly sun sank in the west, 
Ne'ermore to rise again, 

When Love withdrew — 
Bade me adieu — 
Most miserable of men. 

55 



But if there be a Heav'n beyond, 
Where all shall find release 
From strife and pain, 
Will once again 
I meet my dream of peace ? 

And will she know and love me there, 
And understand it all — 
The broken heart. 
The tears that start, 
The dead hopes and their pall? 

I loved her with a priceless love, 
To which all else gave place : 

But hope is dead, 

And now, instead, 
Oblivion I embrace. 



56 



A Valentine. 



A valentine : 't is yours — 't was mine : 

" Like unto like," it greets — 
Valentine to my Valentine : 

Sweet maids receive the sweets. 
It shall not be of verses made 

By other minds than mine : 
I 'm jealous e'en that far — afraid 

To vex my Valentine. 
It shall not be a tinseled thing, 

Enduring but a day, 
Of nut-brown Cupids on the wing, 

Like humming-birds in May. 
Nor shall it be a comic one, 

With vulgar words galore, 
That shows thee blinking at the sun 

In March, on Coney's shore. 
No! that which I shall offer thee, 

'Round whom my heart-strings twine, 
Is love, as boundless as the sea, 

All for my Valentine. 

57 



Birthday Greeting— To ]VL I. B. 



Some birthday verses ? Well, I '11 try 

To write some words to please the eye 

And hold the mind of some one near 

Who may, perchance, the verses hear. 

A birthday is a sacred thing 

To me, and old-time mem'ries bring 

To mind the blithesome days when I, 

A little laddie, oft would try 

To count up to the very day 

When, drawn to full height, I could say : 

ife I' m 'most a man ! — Yes, sir, I 'm ten ! " 

Ah, me ! how glad did life seem then ! 

Then added years brought added cares, 

And, as each load a person bears 

Prepares him for a greater test. 

So each year gave me added zest 

For life's great fight 'tween wrong and right, 

And days of dark gave days of light. 

You 'd have me prophesy for you 

53 



A birthday wish. Grant it be true ! 
May each succeeding year bestow 
Fresh beauty — add to that pure glow 
That from your clear, true eyes is sent : 
God's message through His innocent. 



59 



In Golden Fetters. 



Love captive leads a willing slave, 

Who would, and yet would not, be free, 
For, with that freedom he would crave, 

Would come a loss, which, ah ! dear me ! 
I can 't explain. And yet 't is sweet, 

And bitter then, to place one's neck 
Into Love's halter, to compete 

With Destiny, that may but wreck 
The hopes that should, and should not, be. 

'T is hard to fight thus 'gainst one's heart : 
To long, yet dread, to e'er be free. 

This state is caused by Love's barbed dart, 
The shaft, once bedded in the breast, 

The barb removal will prevent : 
And from thence on there is no rest, 

But days and nights in torment spent. 
When the fair captor favor shows, 

And smiles upon the pleaded suit, 

He writhes in torture — well he knows 

60 



Impatient frowns may be its fruit. 
So must man yield to what, it seems, 
Is but an unrelenting Fate 

Of darkened days and bright sunbeams — 
Ne'er knowing when is reached the gate 

That opens up a vista free 

From whimsic, changeful tempers there, 

And shows the border-land to me 
Where sated Love bids Fear beware. 



61 



J-leart's Content. 



I know a place called Heart's Content — 
Not in Newfoundland, either — 

There by my love and me are spent 
Our happiest hours together. 

In Heart's Content is care forgot, 
And Hope displaces sighing : 

It's flow'r is the forget-me-not, 
The bud that 's dead to dying. 

In Heart's Content the breezes blow 
With joyous sweets plethoric, 

And naught but peace have we to know 
Who feel their grand rhetoric. 

There heartsease grows in ev'ry dell, 
Nor e'er knows extirpation ; 

And birds their raptures seek to tell 
To many a carmed carnation. 

62 : 



Sweet tones, sweet airs 5 incense and prayers 
Rise from her shades of gladness : 

Fair scenes, fair faces — each declares 
Antipathy for sadness. 

Dear Heart's Content! Fair Heart's Con- 
tent ! 

May I dwell in thy borders. 
Where ever linger airs, God-sent, 

That cure mv heart's disorders. 



]^o Future But Thee. 



I have no future where thou art not queen ; 

I see no skies, inviting, calm, serene, 

In which thine own sweet features have no 

part ; 
I know no one with power o'er my heart 

So great as is thine own ! 
I feel no pulsing sense of heav'nly hope 
But that thy soul, to fill my own, did ope ; 
I think no thought of love that doth not turn 
To thee, with scope unknown, as fierce fires 

burn — 
To thee, my love, alone ! 

I reach no place in bold Ambition's flight 
That doth not bear thee to that self-same 

height ; 
I dream no dream so full of dreamland's 

haze 
But morning-light selects thee from the 

maze 



Of other faces, fair ! 
I joy in naught that doth not thee include : 
Aye, e'en in slumber's God-sent interlude ! 
I pray to Heaven never but I feel 
That thou and I are joined in the appeal — 

In life, in love, in prayer ! 



6c 



Just Sixteer? Years Ago To-Day. 



Just sixteen years ago to-day 
My sweetheart came to earth, 

And, at her feet, to homage pay, 
I testify her worth. 

No sweeter seraph Raphael saw; 

No fairer Portia pleaded law ; . 

No daintier darling art could draw. 
Than she who then knew birth. 

When I would sing her beauties, rare, 

My pen is stultified : 
I love her ! now, what more is there 

In language can abide ? 
I Ve told her often how I feel — 
In fact, my love I can 't conceal — 
For love — its own best, strong appeal- 
To this end long has tried. 

Each time I see my soul's ideal 
She 's fairer than the last — 

66 



When thought I love could but appeal 

To beauty unsurpassed. 
Castalides, O lend your aid 
Until, all homage duly paid, 
My queen I crown — the darling maid ! 

My heart at her feet cast ! 

Euphrosyne, at Venus' feet. 
Her mistress thought was fair, 

But had she seen my own heart-sweet 
Would there have been compare? 

I cannot see why, when I woo, 

She listens — queen to subject, too ! 

Who e'er can doubt that I '11 be true 
To that love which I swear! 



67 



Forget— JVTe-fl'of, 



A delicate forget-me-not 
Was plucked in a secluded spot, 
And on my lapel placed. The flow'r 
Was dead and sere in but an hour. 

I wonder will the one who gave 
The token, and whose love I crave,, 
Forget me — withered be her love — 
Will she as fickle Nature prove? 



6S 



?L Valentine—To R. U. D.. 



A fresh bud on the New Year vine, 
''Round which faint mem'ries fondly twine, 
The day of old St. Valentine 

Comes, cheering souls that ache. 
From youthful mind and sunny heart 
The messages of love depart ; 
Noble and plebeian play their part — 

The part all true hearts take. 

And if there be a wounded soul 

Who this day loses self-control. 

And of his love pours out the whole — 

Who dares to say him nay ? 
For such as he the day was born, 
Though all the other days he mourn: 
For Love, at once a rose and thorn, 

Provides this gala day. 

Long use has sanction'd verbiage, ripe 
In form, for rhymesters' notes to pipe ; 



69 



I '11 deviate from this archetype 

And call thee friend — dear friend ! 
Love may be real and true, devout, 
But Love and I have long been " out." 
One thing there is I '11 never doubt — 
Thou art my friend till th' end L 



P 



The Old Iiove's Claim. 



When the Old Love we bid begone 

Has left the portals of the heart, 

And other loves our torn souls don, 

We think the Old Love has no part 
Now in our lives. But we awake, 
After the lapse of joyless years, 
To find Time's pillow wet with tears 
We fain would hide for New Love's sake. 

Our waking thoughts may e'er be true 

To the New Love we learned to wean 
From old affections — but there grew 

Upon the Old Grave myrtle green. 
We would deny the Old Love's claim — 

With fervor deify the New — 
But life has never been the same 

Since the Old Love in tears withdrew ! 

The lucubrations of the heart 
Will oft by mem'ries, old, be led 



Into a train whose way had start 

Back m the crypt of that Love, dead. 
And tho' we struggle to retain 

In honesty the last-sought guest, 
A psychic tremor chills the breast 
And, leaving, 'queaths a shaft of pain. 

The thought that now seems apropos, 

Suggested by New Love and Old, 
Is, Can the heart of man e'er know 

The power its pulses' trends to mold? 
We think we banish from our sky 

Its day-star, tho' the whole it blight — 
But sad years cry : ik Love cannot die ! 

Thy youth -love all thy life will light ! " 



72 



]VIy lioue apd I. 



My love and I one day did walk 

Thro' fields where soon the rip'ning corn 
Will pendant hang from each brown stalk. 

And catch the first kiss of the morn. 
We picked the May-bells from yon hill, 

That tow'rs, majestically high, 
And listened as the mount-born rill 

Told us its tale — my love and I. 

It sang a song so clear and low 

That, as we bent to carch the sound. 
We almost touched its icy flow, 

As knelt we on the mossy ground. 
" Past woodland, green, and verdant waste 

I speed along, and ne'er run dry!" 
We could not list to moie, for haste 

Impelled us on — my love and I. 

The sun oft hid behind a cloud. 

And left us for a moment's space, 
Emerging, then, from its light shroud 

73 



To glad with bright Miss Nature's face. 
It looked as if a s orm might come — 

The dark clouds scurried o'er the sky 
And warned us we should start for home — 

Yet kept we on — my love and I. 

Then the great drops began to fall : 

We saw that it was then too late : 
'T were better in some nook to crawl 

Until the tempest should abate. 
I knew a spot where flowers grew, 

And purling waters rippled nigh : 
We 'd wait there till the storm o'er blew, 

And then go home — my love and I. 

We reached our goal, and with a bound 

Leaped lightly o'er the laughing brook. 
I spread my coat upon the ground 

To rest on in our sheltered nook. 
'T was there I offered her the heart 

She won in days now long gone by ; 
And there we plighted — ne'er to part — 

That love which bound my love and I. 

74 



Brighter Than the Stars. 



Bright stars there are in skies above — 

The earth and heav'ns between — 
But none so bright as is the love 

I bear my heart's true queen. 
Their brilliance sinks to feeble flame 

With love beyond compare 
Which easily their glow can shame 

Before its radiance, rare. 

To what shall liken I the heat 

Of love's pure, changeless flow? 
Methinks there's naught so full, complete, 

In Heav'n nor earth below ! 
I thank the gods who did endow 

My love with gifts so fair, 
That, filled with happiness, I bow 

Before her — Heav'n is there ! 



75 



pour Years Ago. 



'T was just four years ago, my love, 

'T was just four years ago, 
That love of you made sad clouds move, 
As wintry winds the snow, 
And gold beams cast 
O'er me, and past 
Was force of Sorrow's blow. 

'T was just four years ago, my love, 

Years teeming with events ; 

We little knew the woe, my love, 

We 'd look on four years hence : 

The thoughtless word, 

The page, tear-blurr'd, 

Give, each, sad evidence. 

'T was just four years ago, my love, 

That in my life was shed 

The radiance true heans know, my love, 

Before youth-love is dead : 
76 



It merges clear 
With life's each year, 
As brooks to ocean led. 

'T was just four years ago, my love r 

Four years of light and shade — 
For life's full records show, my love T 
That love of both is made — 
That o'er my soul 
You took control, 
And gave me yours " in trade ! " 

'T was just four years ago, my love, 

And well I ween the day, 
When I became your beau, my love,- 
You stole my heart away ! 
Devoted yet, 
I do n't regret 
The love these lines convey. 



77 



I Cannot Sin. 



I cannot sin : my sweetheart said her heart 

was in my breast. 
I cannot sin for what she said — 't would 

shame the sainted guest. 
I cannot sin : so sweet the thought that she 

is mine for aye ! 
I cannot sin : for if I did her heart would 

droop and die ! 

I cannot sin : can weakness be where Love's 
white lilies dwell ? 

I cannot sin : can Heav'n contain the crim- 
son reek of Hell? 

I cannot sin : I said: " My heart no longer 
is my own ! " .. 

I cannot sin : she answer made : " Pray, 
keep mine as Love's loan ! " 



78. 



dust As Thou Art ! 



Just as thou art ! I ask no other boon 

Than thee to clasp in these strong arms 
of mine 

And feel thine own in love around me 
twine — 
'T were not to end so soon ! 

Thou canst not cold remain fore'er 

And I undying love declare 
While gleams yon silv'ry moon ! 

My love is not so thus to die : 
No ! Constant I '11 remain, 

Tho' days may come and days may go, 

And Time may have a ceaseless flow, 
And pale moons rise and wane : 
„ I thee will love, and hold most dear 

The days when to me thou wert near — 
Say, love, will e'er they come again ? 

79 



Enchanted Ground. 



The dream god came to me last night, 
When folded fast in Morpheus' arms. 
A maid enslaved me by her charms — 

Too fulsome, they, for mortal sight. 

How shall I sing her beauty's fame, 
Beside which vaunted Venus' pales ? 
Inadequate, my language fails 

To do the justice she would claim. 

And, wondrous paradox ! the maid 
As I to her, to me was drawn — 
Doubt you I felt then Joy's day-dawn ? 

So, for my love, her own she paid. 

Had I but then recalled the bound 

Past which I stepped in dreamland's play 
I had not been so sad to-day : 

For I was on enchanted ground. 

So 



But I, like other men, love-daft, 
Forgot that it was but a dream 
From which, on waking, but the theme 

Would then remain — a cruel shaft ! 

We two, in Somnus' fair domains, 

Were wed — I know not how, by whom- 
Dispelled was all my earth-born gloom : 

Yet, of that bliss now naught remains! 

And we were happy in the ken 

That I loved her and she loved me : 
Existence — ceaseless ecstasy — 

A dream not oft bestowed on men. 

The brightest phantasies must end — 
Mine did not an exception prove : 
Recalled to earth, I left the love 

Who did with me in dreamland blend. 



81 



R better. 



With what glad anticipation — 
Sense of hope's realization — 
Do we burst th' envelope open, when the 
postman makes his round : 
And our hearts take on new lightness 
As we tear apart the whiteness 
Separating from our visions all the goodies 
in it found. 
Is it from a u flame " of youthful 
Days, when life seemed all so truthful? 
Break the spotless bonds that bind it, mind- 
ing not the old heart-ache ! 
For the days that gave fruition 
But in sadness had their mission, 
And the love that sobbed its life out for ex- 
perience way did make ! 
Is it from a friend, whose tidings — 
Interlined with copious chidings 

That your letters, few and far between, are 

82 



colder growing — bring 
Bitter pangs of days forgotten, 
Joys, companionship-begotten ? 
Delve into its depths and, answ'ring, Sor 
row's requiem 't will sing ! 
Is it from your home-rid mother, 
Whom you left to join another ? 
Rend the seal with rev'rence real and read 
her heart-blood in each line ! 
Distance, great, may intervene — 
Love will memory keep green — 
And that mother-love will ever 'round your 
inmost being twine ! 



83 



]Vly Queen. 



A TRITE TALE OF COURTSHIP AND MAN-TRAP. 

I know a charming maid — my queen — 

Of winsome grace and thoughtful mien ; 

Her voice — the sweetest ever heard — 

My heart's still depths has strangely stirr'd I 

Naught but cold looks I sometimes meet: 

'T is then fain would I, at her feet, 

The story of my love repeat. — 

Was ever wish than this more sweet ? 

But naught of this e'er comes about — 

If e'er it will, I 've many a doubt. 

She '11 laugh or smile at what I say, 

The same, to-morrow, as to-day, 

And yet her heait will lie beyond 

Ambitions, dear, and hopes, most f ond ! 

How can I pierce this wall of ice, 

And, twain in one, our two hearts splice? 



84 



1 have it ! When all else shall fail 

I 11 ask her out to take a sail. 

I '11 row, and she the craft shall steer, 

( And she can do it, never fear ! ) 

As we adown the waters float, 

Together, in our little boat, 

I '11 whisper love-tales in her ear, 

And breathe the hopes I hold most dear. 

Eut will she listen ? — " There's the rub ! " 

I guess I 'd better send a " sub. ! " — 

Eut, no ! that plan would never do — 

For he might love my fair queen, too, 

And, thus, by u speaking for himself," 

Lay all my hopes upon the shelf. 

I think / V better do the u job,'' 

And hear, with many a strong heart-throb : 

" Yes, dearest one, I will be thine ! " 

Then 'round her neck these arms will twine! 

Ah, rapture ! I will ask her now ! — 

But, hold! I first must find a scow ! 

And then I ? 11 lead her down the bank, 

S5 



Nor give her chance my pains to thank. 

Ah, without her e'en time is drear ! 

But I shall row, and she shall steer. 
* - * * * 

'T is o'er. I have engaged the boat — 
The price would shame a table d'hote ! 
I fear my dream of love 't will sour : 
It costs me fifty cents an hour! 
Should she make answer : " Wait awhile ! '" 
I '11 ne'er again be known to smile : 
But pull for shore, on some pretense — 
The truth is, I Ve but forty cents ! 

% * * * 

I led her down the slipp'ry bank, 

As proud as knight of titled rank. 

The brown thrush sang its happiest note r 

As merrily on went the boat. 

Our hearts were strangely light and gay,. 

As full of sunshine as the day. 

The weather was her op'ning theme, 

As swift we glided down the stream- - 



But I was thinking of some way 

To make off when 't came time to pay ! 

Soon my restraint I cast aside — 

In tones of tend'rest passion cried : 

" O, dearest one. my soul's love dream 

To you but stultified may seem : 

But, answer — May we, side by side, 

Stem life's deep waters and their tide ? " 

* * * * 

Now, reader, I suppose you think 

My mind was poised on reason's brink. 

And that, my ardor, fierce, to cool 

She told me not to be a fool ? 

She answered nothing of the kind — 

A diff rent thought was in her mind : 

" I 'm with you, love, for life — fore'er — 

And you can row — but / shall steer ! " 

* * * * 

I waited not to hear aught more, 
But quickly headed for the shore, 
And, landing her upon the quay, 



87 



I kissed her hands in ecstasy. 

'T was done! 'T was won! My fairie flow'r ! 

And won in but a short half hour ! 

Was fair maid e'er won in shorter? 

As it was, I owed a quarter ! 

These ten long years, as man and wife, 

We 've battled with the storms of life : 

And children came to bless our home, 

As sunbeams out of darkness come. 

But oft in fancy do I roam 

To that day when, in early gloam, 

I asked my queen to be my wife, 

Where wind met waves in noisy strife. 
* * * * 

Often in smiles, seldom in tears, 
I 'm at the oars, and she still steers. 

Sault de Ste. Marie, Mich., 1890. 



Spiritual Selections. 



During a Snow-Storm. 



The snow in white flakelets is falling to-day, 
So let us be merry, while merry we may ! 
To-morrow, old earth may return to her 

gloom — 
These tired, world-lorn bodies repose in the 

tomb : 
The spirit to the spirit-world take its flight — 
Blest realm, where no sorrow or trouble 

brings night ! 
The snow is most beautiful : but there 's a 

place 
Eternal, forever existing in space : 
With which the snow we love — yet shrink 

from its touch — 
Cannot compare : for there is none other 

such ! 



91 



Tl?e Quiet flour. 



How restful is the quiet hour : 

How soothing 't is, and sweet, 
When, freed from all the tempter's power, 

I rest at Jesus' feet. 
Rest from the trials that oppress, 

And make life dead to me : 
I muse on Jesus' tenderness, 

And bathe me in its sea. 

How pleasant from the world to keep : 

The world of noise and care ! 
What sweet joy comes to walk and weep 

With Jesus, over there ! — 
Not over there, but at my side 

He 's walking, day by day : 
How can I wander with that Guide 

To keep me in the way ? 

I cannot see the reason why 

I am bv care oppres't, 
92 



When He will hear my ev'ry cry, 

And take me to His breast ! 
0, Soul, why shouldst thou fear, or doubt 

His mercy and His care, 
When He has driven Satan out, 

And placed His sunshine there? 

0, Heart, why weary grow, and faint, 

When presses sore the foe, 
When thou canst break from its restraint^ 

And to thy Captain go ? 
Why shouldst thou struggle on alone, 

Trusting in thine own might — 
Trying, in vain, to hold thine own 

In the unequal fight ? 

How pleasant 't is to lose myself 

In Jesus' loving arms — 
Forgetting worldly pomp and pelf: 

The thing that snares and charms. 
I rise, refreshed : my languor gone : 



95 



Trials have flown away : 
And, like the bird at early dawn, 
Push once more into day. 

Calais, Me., 1891. 



94 



{^etributioi?. 



The angels weep to-morrow : 

To-day, man weakly falls : 
The angels weep for sorrow 

In lightsome heav'nly halls. 

The sons of men, disdainful. 

Scorn's finger, cruel, point : 
And Sin's heart-wound, tho' painful, 

With virus they anoint. 

His quondam friends, hard-hearted, 

Repudiate his name : 
From each dear tie he 's parted. 

By reason of ill-fame. 

Could he have viewed the ending 

That Sin's path had in store, 
Would he, with will quick-bending, 

Have fallen, as before ? 

95 



A good name — precious treasure !- 
Once lost, man can't regain : 

And Sin doles out its measure 
Of woe in man's disdain. 

The angels weep to-morrow : 
To-day, man weakly falls : 

The angels weep for sorrow 
In lightsome heav'nly halls. 



9 6 



J^ew Year l^esolutiops. 



u New Year " — what possibilities 
In thee the wearied sinner sees : 

What chance for better-doing! 
What hope to right the wrong of years : 
To reap in joy seed sown in tears, 

Despite others' construing. 

The struggling son of Adam — born. 
It oft-times seems, to live to mourn 

Too ready acquiescence 
When flesh and spirit warfare waged r 
Power's balance leaving, weak, engaged 

Against his own soul's prescience — 

Takes firmer hold on sweeter life — 
Sweeter because of beck'nings, rife, 

To walk in higher places ! 
Far in the future's horoscope 
But one star gleams — the Star of Hope — 

And 'round it group the graces 

97 



He fain would woo, in intent, strong, 
Tho' bitter be the strife, and long, 

And rough the way up-leading. 
Help with your prayers, ye strong in faith, 
Those hope to whom is but a wraith, 

Advancing and receding. 



9 s 



IK f4egative Thanksgiving.. 



Habakkuk iii, 17-19. 

Tho' the fig tree shall not blossom, 

Neither fruit be in the vine ; 
^Labour of the olive faileth, 

Lean and wretched be the kine ; 
And, no wheat the green fields yielding, 

Want stands out in profile, bold, — 
*Give your thanks! for One is shielding 

Ev'ry soul who owns His fold. 

Once the fields, with flocks plethoric, 

Promise gave of plenteous store : 
Emptied, now, in ev'ry corner, 

And their place knows them no more. 
Herds that in the stalls were lowing, 

Nearby to the garner'd grain, 
Faint and fall, to earth, bestowing 

That which shall not live again. 

99 



He Who walks in highest places, 

Bidding earth-worn souls to come r 
Freely gives to all His graces 

Who regard his home, sweet home. 
Lift your hearts, in God rejoicing! 

Thank Him you, unworthy, live — 
Thus, your soul and mind loud voicing 

A Thanksgiving negative ! 



R Prodigal's f^eturrx 



Thro' dark'ning mists of shame-wrought 

tears : 
Thro' low'ring mists of fruitless years : 
Full, shining bright, a star appears — 

God's love, so long untasted ! 
Tho' I rebelled — threw off the yoke 
Of Him Who pardon to me spoke — 
No joyful sprite could I invoke : 

My life was barren, wasted. 

Tn worldly joys I sought to dim 
Rememb'rance of the thought of Him 
Who braved, for me, the cross-bent limb — 

Endured the agony ! 
But joy I knew not, nor her face. 
Until implored I Jesus' grace : 
He gave a welcome to the place 

Unfilled — reserved for me ! 



fyfly Evening Prayer; 



On, stealthily, the shadows creep,. 

And 'round about me fall : 
And soon the restful monarch, Sleep,, 

Will hold me in his thrall. 
I bend the knee beside my bed, 

And tell all that day's cares 
To One Who, in His Word, has said 

He 'd hear my feeble prayers. 

I tell of vict'ries in His name, 

When were temptations rife : 
And, boldly, His sweet promise claim 

For vict'ries all through life. 
I pour my troubles and my woes 

Into His waiting ear : 
And calm peace comes to know He knows 

About them, and is near. 

The shades of night creep on apace,. 
But with them comes no fear :. 



For I have sought and found the face 

Of my Redeemer, dear. 
He 's heard the story of the day — 

He knew it ere 't was told — 
And, tho' the skies are cold and gray, 

I 'm safe within His fold. 

My prayer is said : the answer, sure : 

And yet I linger there : 
For to my ear, with passion pure, 

There comes another prayer — 
One ? Yes, and more : e'en numberless 

The nightly prayers that rise 
From God's beloved in distress, 

Who wait for sweet replies ! 

I hear a Voice : u Son, not alone 

Ascends thy helpless call 
To Him Who, from His mighty throne, 

Notes ev'ry sparrow's fall : 
For many millions, at this hour, 

103 



Are low bowed at His feet, 

Imploring for the Spirit's pow'r, 

The day to make complete. " 

I fear no evil nigh my head : 

Omnipotent the care 
Of Him Whose angels, o'er my bed, 

Anticipate each prayer. 
And, tho' the world misjudge my ways, 

I shall not fear or weep : 
But live a life of ceaseless praise, 

And enter in His sleep. 

Calais, Me., 1891. 



104 



Easter. 

To-day, the Easter lilies bloom, 

When came from out the grewsome tomb 

The Lord of tide and time. 
To-day, we loud hosannas sing : 
Hosannas to our risen King, 
Who came to earth His peace to bring — 

Was love e'er more sublime? 

No more dominion now has Death : 
These are the words the Good Book saith : 

For dieth He no more ! 
To-day, we raise our glad acclaim 
To glorify our Lord's dear name : 
Past, present, future, e'er the same — 

This Christ Whom we adore ! 

For, as in Adam dieth all, 
In Christ is ta'en away Death's thrall, 
And Azrael's bitter sting. 

105 



Rejoice, ye sons of men, rejoice ! 
Let ev'ry heart and ev'ry voice 
With songs of joy laud Heaven's Choice- 
The Glorified, the King ! 

Ye who are risen with the Lord, 
Raise psalms of joy with one accord : 

And seek those things above, 
Where sitteth, e'er, at God's right hand 
The Lord of life, of sea, of land — 
The Fairest of the fair that stand 

In th' heav'n of purest love ! 

To-day, the Easter lilies bloom : 
To-day, dispell'd is all earth's gloom — - 

The risen Christ is Lord ! 
In beauty, brighter than the light 
Of moon and stars in skies at night,. 
He reigns, in spotless ermine-white — 

By earth and heav'n adored I 



1 06 



"R Liittle Child Shall Dead Them/ 



The surpliced choir an anthem sang : 

The notes were all correct : 
From the mosaic'd chancel rang 

The songs of God's elect. 
Each part was represented there, 

And perfect was the time — 
For each was paid the part to bear 

In melody sublime. 

But that day music seemed to lack 

Its pow'r to fill the soul : 
And echo sent the sweet sounds back, 

With long and measur'd roll. 
The preacher prayed and sermonized : 

A goodly man was he : 
And told of that Life sacrificed 

On the remorseless tree. 

The sermon o'er : " Now, rise and sing," 

107 



The parson slowly said. 
" O, Death, where is thy vaunted sting?" 

The parson slowly read. 
Full out upon the sacred air 

A childish treble soared : 
" Ye men of Israel, prepare 

The way of Christ, the Lord ! " 

All through the hymn the sweet child-tone 

Prevail'd, in accents, clear : 
And men and women, harden'd grown, 

Brushed back th' unbidden tear. 
The days of childhood — mem'ries old — 

Seemed fresh as yestermorn : 
And men who lived now but for gold 

Felt higher impulse born. 

And hypocrites — sepulchres, white ! — 
Whose hearts no man could read, 

Felt in their souls God's richest light — 
Thus did the child-song plead. 

108 



Dark brows, that care had furrow' d deep, 

Grew smoother, even calm : 
Souls dormant woke from sin's death-sleep 

At sound of that sweet psalm. 

And when the song had died away, 

The minister knelt down : 
u Brothers and sisters, let us pray!" 

He said, and smoothed his gown. 
But never mind about his prayer — 

The child-voice stirr'd each heart : 
And ev'ry man and woman there 

For holier ways made start. 



109 



A Soliloquy. 



Far out upon the sunlit stream, 
The oarsman sweeps the blade : 

See how it glitters with the gleam 
By heav'nly sunlight made ! 

And now they 're feathered by the hand 
Deep-skilled with life-long use : 

And, as he nears the pebbly strand, 
He casts each long oar loose. 

Too soon, my brother, strong the tide 

Sweeps in around thy boat, 
Just as, with selfish, greedy pride 

The miser learns to gloat. 

Too soon thoust cast thine oar aside — 
Trusting thy barque to fate : 

And unrelentlessly the tide 
Sweeps toward its ocean gate. 

How true it is that many a soul 
Too soon throws down the oar : 



Thinking that it has reached the goal, 
When intervenes much more. 

In triumph's flush, the pleasure's flame 
Quick casts each barrier down : 

We ask for naught but fleeting fame, 
And sigh for laurel'd crown. 

Full many a soul abandons Cross, 

Because of Crown assured : 
But to all such 't will be but loss 

Who have not long endured. 

We trust too much to what our strength 

Accomplished in the past, 
But we awaken when, at length, 

Our barque bends to the blast. 

Then let us not forego the oar. 

Because of rest we miss: 
Repose we have not till we soar 

To realms of changeless bliss. 



An Easter Anthem. 



Ye hosts of Heaven bow the head — 

For Christ, the Lord, is risen ! 
He left the dark place of the dead — 

The Saviour, Christ, is risen ! 
The spotless Son of God, Who came 
Lost, fallen man to save — reclaim 
Him by the fall born to its blame — 
Yea, Christ, the Lord, is risen ! 

The first-fruits of the souls that slept 

Became 'He Who is risen ! 
And Mary's tears, in anguish wept, 

Availed, for Christ is risen ! 
Let sounds of sorrow change to joy: 
Let ev'ry heart its all employ : 
For One Whom death could not destroy- 
E'en Christ, the Lord, is risen ! 

Triumphant over death and sin, 
Jesus, the Lord, is risen ! 



In Thee, alone, can life begin, 

My Saviour, now arisen ! 
My soul Thy name doth magnify, 
Dear Lord, for Whom 't was not to die ! 
Now rings the chorus, loud, on high, 

For Christ, the Lord, is risen ! 



i»3 



jKJemorial ana* Personal 



JVIrs. Jlarrison. 



Columbia bows her head, and sobs 

The grief she cannot speak, 
For in her arteries there throbs 

Sorrow, that Death should seek 
The fireside of her honored chief, 

And steal away his love : 
Thus 't is our hearts are bowed with grief — 

We can but look above 
To where, secure from earthly pain, 

Safe in the Hav'n of Rest, 
Her spirit waits till, once again, 

It joins him she loved best. 
Her deeds of love and charity 

Live after, and are writ 
On hearts of all humanity 

Who reaped her benefit. 
No more let weeping now be heard : 

Caroline Harrison 

n.7 



Has lived to hear the Master's word : 
" My faithful child, well done 1 ' ' 

October 26, 1892. 



ri.S 



dan?es Gillespie Blaipe. 



" ' The Plumed Knight ' we loved is dead ! " 

So ran the word 

Where'er is heard 
The sound of speech, or print is read. 

Azrael triumphed o'er the will 

Of iron strength, 

And, then, at length, 
Mors' accents spoke, and all was still. 

In life, respect was his : and love 

For service done, 

Fresh laurels won 
From those who did his course approve. 

His life was one of peace : his end — 

So long foreseen — 

Calm and serene : 
So did the Pine to Boreas bend ! 

119 



Forgot|be all the dark that gave 

But blighted hope : 

His horoscope 
Could but foretell his end : the grave. 
Washington, D. C, Jan. 28, 1893. 



Gen. dohn A. bogan. 



Let poets sing of conquests done : 
Of battles fought, and vict'ries won : 
But Logan — than whom stronger mind 
And braver heart in clay confined 
Had never life — knew need of none 
His praise to sing. Where shines the sun 
On nation blessed with human light 

But Logan's name 

And Lo'gan's fame 
Forestalled its glories ere the night? 

Each rain drop, falling when he died, 
Drip'd Heaven's tears at that bed-side ! 
And ev'ry tree that sigh'd in wood 
Bemoaned his death — the noble, good ! 
His countrymen knelt by that crypt, 
Where lay his mold, of life-beat strip't : 
And no one paused beside the bier 



Of warrior — seer, 
But left a tear 
To tell the angels he was dear. 

Washington, D. C, Jan. io, 1887, 



liord Alfred Tennyson. 



Unstring his lyre, and lay it by 

Britain's dead poet's side : 
The fount of feeling is not dry 

Tho' Tennyson has died! 
He lived while we were yet unborn : 

He sang ere we could speak: 
His life, as pure as nascent morn, 

Tho' wild winds blew, and bleak. 
We mourn him. Aye, the man who led 

Our minds to depths most deep 
Shall have our love, tho' life has fled, 

And we are left to weep. 

October 8, 1892. 



123 



Edward Everett J-lale. 



His word -simplicity frown'd pomp to shame, 

And homely thoughts yield, 'neath his 
pen, pure gold : 
He sought not, yet it found him out, glow'd 
fame : 

And truth of spirit marked each tale he 
told. 
His was the story-teller's art : and plain 

The inspiration that controll'd his mind : 
His was the glory that can know no wane: 

And his the satisfaction good men find. 
He wrote in words that shone with honesty: 

He breathed his love for God in ev'ry line : 
He taught us love of country as best he 

Was able — his love bordered the divine ! 



124 



Ella Wheeler Wilcox. 



Her practis'd hand struck chords of pas- 
sion'd wealth : 
Her repertoire — the gamut of the soul — 
Was swept with grand effect. The forced 
stealth 
Of thought play'd 'round her lyre, and to 
control. 
She sang her heart-songs, sweet, to airs 
that all 
Who know that pow'r within themselves, 
may feel : 
She sounded to the dormant clay the call 
Of passion, strung to notes of purpose, 
real. 
To her the thanks of reawaken'd hearts 
Are due. Her lays of faultless-molded 
fashion 
Will live in future days, and play their parts 
When dust remains of the Poet of Pas- 
sion. 

125 



(Miscellaneous 



A Prpeumatological Query. 



Oh, tell me, ye spirits who rove at the bid 

Of a Spirit in majesty 'rayed, 
In a world from the sight of earth-lorn men 
hid, 

Where One, Prajapati, is obeyed : 
Do ye efforts note Veda's light to increase 

Of truth-seekers here on earth below ? 
We abjure our souls their vain struggles 
surcease : 

But yet but unrest have we to know. 

Oh, tell me, ye souls who from earth-scenes 
have fled 
To lands where conception Sruti knew : 
Will the hopes, prized immortal, fore'er be 
dead — 
The hopes that did with joy life imbue ? 
We mortals, short-sighted, see with finite 
eyes : 

129 



Reason, likewise dwarfed, pierces no 
more : 
Will Immortality's star, acronic, rise 

At Death upon a golden-sheen'd shore ? 



130 



Christmas.. 



'T is Christmas time ! 

The joy-bells chime ! 
And merry voices, singing. 

Recall to earth 

The Saviour's birth — 
New life to mortals bringing. 

Each glad yule-tide 

The whole world, wide, 
Wi.h laughter sets to ringing! 

While in the skies, 

We may surmise, 
Angelic choirs are singing. 

The icy flow 

The brook-elves know 
Is stopped, and, o'er it flinging 

A mantle, white, 

Com^s in the night 
Old Kris, with bells a -jingling. 



13a 



The cold wind, blown 
O'er graves, moss-grown, 

Makes music 'mongst the dead : 
Among the boughs 
Bad sprites carouse 

Noisily overhead. 

O, joyous day, 

For once portray 
To these weak hearts of our& 

That day of days 

When Him we praise 
Came, in the land of flowers I 

And shepherds, wild, 

The infant Child 
Beheld, with reverent love v. 

While Cherubim 

And Seraphim 
Sent blessings from above*. 



132 



" ''92 apd '93. M 



Slowly across the mount of Time 

Two trav'lers wend their way: 
Carefully, painf'ly, up they climb, 

For one is old and grey. 
The other, a fair, bright-eyed youth, 

With merry, dancing eye, 
Minds not the wearv climb — forsooth, 

The Old One soon must die. 
They sight a mile-stone far ahead : 

The Grey Beard sees his end : 
A few more rods of road they tread, 

And then is reached the bend. 
On one side of the stone, they knew, 

Altho' they could not see, 
Were cut the figures, u '92 '' — 

On th' other, u '93. "■ 
A parting shake : a far-reach'd sigh : 

They part — each to his own — 
The elder's day has come to die : 

The youth's to walk alone ! 



133 



The Poet's ]V[ake-up. 



r T is not the faculty to rhyme, 

Tho' quaint may be the though t r 
That makes the poet of our time, 

By whom great things are wrought.. 
'T is not the gift to tell a tale 

In measured, flowing verse — 
To write in words that never fail, 

For better or for worse. 

It is the pow'r to sympathize 

With Nature in her moods : 
To read the thought in violet eyes, 

And in the cloud that broods 
With features, low' ring, sullen, black,. 

O'er landscape, beast and man, — 
To linger in the tempest's track, 

And therein find God's plan.. 



^34 



Destiny. 

NOW. 

When present scenes are ripe with gloom 
And sadness, 

We think the future years have room 
For gladness : 

Nor thought of youth's departed bloom- 
Gay madness ! 

THEN. 

We retrospect the flight of years 

And paining, 
And see, as now, the self-same fears 

Restraining 
Our hopes and joys : but with sad tears 

Complaining. 



*35 



Unreality. 

These beauteous things we often touch, 

And handle with delight — 
Are they all real? We love them much 

Yet oft they fade from sight. 
A loved one's kiss may be bestowed : 

As one the hearts respond ; 
IndifFrence comes : takes its abode, 

And withers Love's gold frond. 



136 



Waiting. 

I wait, and wait, and wait — for what ? 

For favored Fortune's smile ? 
Or for the passing of some spot 

From off my life's sun-dial ? 
Yes, that is it : my light is hid 

Beneath a bushel's gloom : 
I hither go at Fancy's bid — 

Devoid of Hope's bright bloom. 

A melancholy person — I, 

Who joy personified 
In those bright days, now long gone by, 

And live now self to chide ? 
But I am waiting. As I wait 

To hear my joy-bells ring, 
I fancy that a pard'ning Fate 

May take back ev'rything. 

Why can I never have heartsease 
Growing about my nest ? 



137 



But God's ways do not always please r 
E'en if they turn out best. 

The darken'd cloud may yet reveal 
A silver lining's sheen : 

Now o'er my mem'ry voices steal — 
Her fields are ever green. 



138 



Thought. 

The day in long, gray shadows merges into 

early night, 
And, nestward bound, on leaden wing, the 

weary birds take flight ; 
Dark shadows fall athwart the sky : the sun 

has ta'en his leave : 
And moon and stars the firmament with 

suVry glimm'rings cleave. 
The laborer, his day's work done — a happy, 

sensual clod ! — 
Is home, with wife and little ones. Yes, 

let him thank his God 
That golden dreams of wealth and fame do 

not beset his heart ! 
Content, he eats his crust and drinks that 

for him set apart. 
Would that I might escape an hour from 

thought of what has been : 
And, in oblivion, forget all — forget all, e'en 

my sin ! 

'39 



Forget that e 1 er I loved and wooed — but 

loved and wooed in vain — 
Forget that happiness is gone : forget e'en 

to complain ! 
'T is twilight hour, and I 'm alone — alone : 

yes — but for Thought ! — 
Would that my guest would now depart, 

with all the train he brought ! 
I fear too oft I sought his face when first 

he came : his stay 
Bids fair to be a lengthy one — forever and 

a day. 



i 4 o 



To a Iiittle Cr;ild. 



Kind Heaven sends a sunbeam, now and 
then, 
Dispersing clouds of sorrow, joy-defying, 
Dispelling tears and mundane sounds of 
sighing, 
And gladdening the souls of sin-starved 
men. 

Fill'd with the freshening vigor of the morn, 
With smiles for those who seldom know 

but tears : 
Unconscious of the coming troublous 
years — 
Exuberant, and free from cares, unborn. 



i 4 i 



Beyond the Tears. 



There are times when the light seems to die 
in our lives, 
And we turn, for relief, to the grave : 
And we write in the tome of our tear- 
blurr'd archives 
These few words : " Soul, look up, and be 
brave ! " 
And we see naught ahead but the sad grind 
of years, 
With their tale of distress and defeat : 
But we smile, tho' the hope-light is wet 
with our tears, 
When we think that in Heav'n is rest", 
sweet. 

T^ere are times when our hearts to no joy- 
songs respond : 
When life's whole deaden'd is, blank and 

sere : 
142 



But we see, thro' the lift of the veil, that 
beyond 
Which our sorrows but make us to near. 
Oh, how glad is the thought, tho\ at times, 
't is forgot, 
That our hearts we must leave here below : 
For the sin they contain would but sad all 
our lot 
Should we bear them above when we go. 



H3 



Thrice Happy \ie. 



Thrice happy he whose soul responds 

To songs of minor key ! 
Who never knew Ambition's bonds : 

Again, thrice happy he ! 
A master, unrelenting, stern, 
Whose fires are never quenched, but burn 
Forever, in that crucial urn, 

The heart ot man, once free. 

Thrice happy he who, in content, 

Laughs loud at carping Care ! 
With soul on present pleasure bent, 

And sadden 'd moments, rare, 
He feels no longings after Fame, 
Nor wish to make for him a name: 
His heart ne'er knew the gods 1 hot flame,. 

Nor depth of soul-despair. 



i 44 



A Query. 

When this corporeal frame of mine. 

Now full of life as nectar'd wine, 

Is from man's vision laid away 

Till earth shall claim the God-lent clay — 

Will any one pause at my bier 

To say : " A friend I loved lies here ! " 

And will my virtues be recalled 

By those whom Friendship's ties enthrall'd ? 

Will any one my sleep regret ? — 

'T is but the payment of life's debt 

Contracted ere I knew birth's fact, 

Or subscribed to the fatal pact ! 

Will any human call me friend 

When mundane things shall have an end? 

And will the love I bear for one 

Make soft that heart when life is done ? 



H5 



While on the H°°k fountain. 



I wandered to the mountain-side, 

To seek out mind-repose, 
And looked down on the Hudson's tide, 

Just as it ebbs and flows. 
I scaled the beetling precipice, 

And from that lofty seat 
I looked far down the deep abyss, 

Where wind and waters meet. 

I went on, where the gnarled oak 

Stood, in gaunt majesty, 
And listened as the waters spoke, 

And told strange tales to me. 
I heard the tree-tops sigh and creak, 

As in the wind they swayed : 
I gazed far up the topmost peak, 

And then down shaded glade. 

I picked the May-bells as they grew 

Among the rocks and moss, 
146 



And violets, of azure hue, 

Made heavier my cross. 
I spied a rock shaped like a chair, 

And there sat as I wrote, 
While bending, from my seat, mid-air, 

O'er many a passing boat. 

I dreamed and dozed and dozed and 
dreamed, 

As Nature urged to rest — 
And yet she never fairer seemed 

Than from my eyrie nest. 
The hawk and eagle spread their wings, 

And far beneath me flew : 
Yet — tho' above terrestrial things — 

I was above them, too. 



147 



Thanksgiving. 



So many blessings crowd our path, 

So rich with full fruition, 
We scarce feel their sweet aftermath r 

Appreciate their mission. 
With joys familiar we become, 

Nor see in them God's working: 
In duties, tho' they be hum-drum, 

We find but means for shirking : 
We see the sunshine all the earth 

With cheery hues adorning : 
And oft our hearts, when dead to mirth,. 

Respond to naught but mourning. 
And Nature's beauties crown the lot 

Wherein God willed our living, 
And yet His mercies are forgot — 

Our hearts are unforgiving 
Toward some one of human-kind 

Who may, perchance, have wronged us. 

Why cherish hatred in the mind 

i. 4 s 



When God with love has thronged us ? 
We fail to see, behind some cloud 

Of woe, to us appearing, 
Souhstrength or beauty, God-endow'd, 
Which, by that cross, we 're nearing. 
God's purposes we cannot pierce 

With finite understanding, 
And oft behind a tempest, fierce, 

Lies safety, notwithstanding, 
We see but blackness in our way : 

In sorrow seems our ending : 
But God will send a hope- fraught ray — 

His love, from Heaven bending. 
With malice toward no fellow man, 

Freely all wrongs forgiving, 
Render to God the most you can — 

A love- laden Thanksgiving. 



»49 



A Jlallowe'ei? Recipe. 



Hurrah for to-night ! All Hallowe'en 

Is thrown upon the gay world's screen. 

For choice, red apples let us "bob," 

While damsels gaze, with anxious throb, 

Into the mirror for a sight 

Of males with whom their vows they '11 plight. 

On tip-toe let us stand, and try 

To bite that apple, stringing high. 

To giddy girls : water and salt 

Swelled in your peachy cheeks will halt 

The apparition of your spouse. 

Leered pumpkins, hung from quiv'ring; 

boughs 
Of yonder fecund chestnut tree, 
Cause elves to dance in ghoulish glee. 
Then gather 'round the cheery fire, 
And, as the flames mount higher, higher,. 
Ghost stories tell, till faint ones fear 
1150 



A spectre may, e'en now, be near. 
When to your bed you make your way, 
And, kneeling, for each loved one pray, 
Do not, because 't is over, grieve, 
But wait till next comes " Holler Eve." 



151 



Spring Apostrophizes. 



I 'm Gentle Spring, the hated bane 

Of editors, who seek, in vain, 

To kill off poets, who declare — 

Those chaps, you know, with jungle hair- 

That sunshine never seemed more bright 

Than since I sprang from Winter's night. 

I 'm Gentle Spring — you know me well — 
For me agonic raptures swell : 
I 'm shunned by poets of fair fame, 
But yet I " get there, just the same.'' 
Queen Summer springs from out my lap : 
But Summer is n't " on the map ! " 

I 'm Gentle Spring : the printer swears 
Whene'er my name in " copy ' : stares 
Him in the face. Perhaps the thought 
Of iced cream that must soon be bought, 
With other sweet commodities, 
Compels his marrow, lean, to freeze ! 
152 



I 'm Gentle Spring— what 's that : " a truce ? " 
You all consign me to u the deuce " — 
Tell me to " get to blazes out ! " 
In tones a long way from devout ? 
All right: just wait until next year, 
And you the self-same song shall hear ! 



153 



Thg Dram. 

Great orchestras, with swelling chords ; 

Crude savages, with noise of gourds ; 

Brass bands, each piece of sounding kev 

Bass viols, fusing ecstasy ; 

Tom-toms, with noisy, dull-toned beat ; 

Guitars, with musing sonance sweet ; 

Shrill fifes, that pierce the list'ning ear ; 

The tuba-horn, to blow which beer 

Is needed to enforce the wind ; 

Reverb'rant reeds of eastern Ind: 

Piano-forte, arpeggios-fraught ; 

^Eolian trills, by Amphion taught ; 

And melting sweeps of zither, soft 

As by Euterpe borne aloft ; 

The rattling ring of banjo thrum ; 

The sound-majestic roll of drum — - 
The drum ! The drum S 
From whose depths come 

Those martial tones to which succumb 

'54 



The cav'ling fears faint manhood knows, 
And send, to battle 'whelming foes, 
Brave hosts, 'gainst which naught can op- 
pose. 
The faintest hearts at once become 
The bravest at the sound of drum ! 



>55 



Tr^e Judge's Decision. 

A local daily did me the honor to submit the verses 
received in an inter-State Christmas poetry contest,, for my 
decision thereon, which is here appended : 

Dear Mr. Editor: You ask 

Of me a most brain-racking task. 

When I next on your kind impose 

With stilted verse, may these eyes close! 

I once thought my villanelles brought 

Joy in the sanctum — wonders wrought 

Among those who, by cruel Fate, 

Must therein for subscribers wait. 

But, since you 've asked me to partake 

Of sufferings yours: Fame's hot thirst slake: 

Essaying to do that which you, 

From time lost track of, have gone thro' — 

Methinks I '11 ne'ermore versify. 

Nor cause more editors to die. 

Alas ! alack ! what breasts were beat 

In many a sanctum's dark retreat ! 

What cries of anguish rent the air ! 

('T was verily good I was not there ! ) 
•56 



What curdling curses on my head ! 

What loving things of me were said — 

And all because my vagrant Muse 

Their souls did not, as mine, enthuse! 

The task assigned is delicate — 

So many on my answer wait — 

And criticisms will ensue 

Soon as the victor 's brought to view. 

Of merit there 's a modicum 

In each verse, howe'er cumbersome 

With useless anapaestic sounds : 

Verse erstwhile played at hare and hounds : 

Again, poor rhythm, scant'ly yoked 

With thoughts by no means poor, invoked 

My pity that the writer had 

Not yet discerned 'tween good and bad. 

First honors reach " A Christmas Star," 

While " Santa Claus," the children's Czar, 

Passes, for "place," beneath the "wire: " 

All others vainly tuned the lyre. 



'57 



That Quizzing Blizzard. 



Ye bards who scale Parnassian heights, 
Who know Olympia's fierce delights : 
Ye hacks who woo the Muse o' nights : 

Thrice palsied be the wing 
Of flame poetic — Fate-fraught shaft ! 
That stamps you stultified and daft : 
The fetid inspiration quaff't 

Of gentle, beauteous Spring! 

Quaint Farmer Dunn, in jean attire, 
Poured out the vials of his ire : 
Discordant is the Spring-tuned lyre, 

While falls the snow — ker-flump ! 
Breathes there a man so lost to shame, 
So careless of his own fair fame, 
As 't write of Spring, in words of flame ? 

That man 's a soulless chump ! 

Just think ? — that storm of yesterday 

158 



Has ta'en our trusting faith away 

In Granger Dunn, of New York Bay, 

Who made a bad u miscue." 
A zephyr, fresh from Peary's fleet, 
An Af ric simoon chanced to meet : 
They places changed : the joke 's complex : 

Let Spring begin anew. 
April 12, 1894. 



159 



Ineffectual Genius. 



"The ineffectual genius of the nineteenth century, I 
fancy, which betrays itself by strange incongruities and 
contrasts of a violent kind, but is otherwise unproductive,"* 
Mrs. Orton Beg whispered to Mr. Frayling, incautiously, 
— The Heaveiily Twins. 

Genius — and ineffectual ? 

Can such as that exist 
When God the intellectual 

With glowing fire has kis't ? 
Barren and fruitless gifts bestowed 

When birth brought life's clear view : 
Is this the fin de siecle mode 

Of plenishing with new 
The worn, a-wearied action-line 

That Genius' nation knows — 
Of marking out the arts' decline 

To emphasize their close ? 

Shall Muses speak to inchoate 
And far unworthy minds, 

Or shall they seek the old estate, 

1 60 



Where lofty souls one finds ? 
Shall thrill Euterpe's strains of might r 

When none can feel their charms : 
Or e'en the stars the blue bedight 

When earth seeks Somnus' arms ? 
Genius, whose flame can never flare, 

Tho' oft thou art invoked. 
Thy fire-tip'd shaft is ever bare — 

Thy soul to genius yoked ! 



161 



The Press. 



From out the chaos of a world unknown 

In parts to other parts ; 
From out the noisy Babel, where alone 

Prevails the din of marts : 
From need that sprang from mind, un- 
satisfied 

By herald's meagreness : 
Behold, a pow'r appears : nor yet belied 

By name — behold, the Press ! 

Its power ? To Niagara's foam-tip'd fall, 

Add all earth's water-force — 
The mighty Press, unfettered, is to all 

As is old Ocean's course! 
Ten million eyes this Argus hath, and 
naught 

Of worth, or small or great, 
Eludes his observation, but is caught 

For men's minds, news-belate. 



Men's wrongs, like sins unpunished, cry 
aloud 
For succor and redress : 
And, championing the right, from Wrath's 
dun cloud, — 
Behold, the Press ! 
Advancement, Progress, Light and Life, in 
bold, 
Bright caption its shield dress : 
Might, Right are ever, truly thine — behold, 
The Press ! 



163 



Despair.. 

Grim are thy shadows, O, Despair I 
Grim are thy shadows — grim and bare I 
Dark is the w T ay that leads to thee ! 
Dark is the mind that pleads to thee ! 
Black are the clouds that o'er thee dwell — 
Black as the clouds that shadow hell ! 
Deep the abyss that meeteth thee ! 
Deep the heart-burn that greeteth thee 1 
Dun is the pall that hides thy face ! 
Dun is the fall from human grace ! 
Dreary the path that knows no end ! 
Dreary the souls who on it wend 
Ways to the crypt of black Despair : 
Ways to the shadows, grim and bare ! 

Steeped in the mists of human hate ! 
Steeped in the grists of 'pending Fate ! 
Might lends to rage its doubl'd pow'r ! 
Might rends the guage of troubl'd dow'r I 



Mighty the waves of fierce, foul scorn ! 
Mighty the staves of curses born ! 
Tragic the wild thoughts then that roll ! 
Tragic the requiem of the soul ! 
Damn'd, thrice, the heart that knows thy 

blight ! 
Daran'd, thrice, the man who knows thy 

might ! 
Grim are thy shadows, O, Despair! 
Grim are thy shadows — grim and bare ! 



165 



The Italian ]VIatcl? Boy. 



" Please, buy some matches, lady, 

No carry so much then ; 
The road is long and dusty, 

And nothing for me when 
The day is done but to lay down 

To sleep, beneath some tree : 
Please, buy some matches, lady, 

Buy matches, ma'am, from me ? 

u A cruel man is my padrone — 

He beats me till I 'm sore, 
Because nobody buys a box — 

Because I can't sell more. 
Just see how clear the matches snap : 

Take 'em — ten cents for three? 
Please, buy some matches, lady, 

Buy matches, ma'am, from me?" 

Jjc * * *: 

ki You be rich lady, madam, 

v66 



Some day, for what you Ve done ! 
Oh, thank you ! thank you, lady ! 

And may your little son, 
Who 's smiling in the window, 

Never come down where he 
Will have to peddle matches, 

And tramp around, like me ! " 

He kissed the woman's hand, and turned 

To go out thro' the gate, 
And, picking up his heavy load, 

Altho 1 the hour was late, 
He dragged himself along the road — 

This creature, wan and wee — 
And asked, at ev'ry door he stopped: 

Buy matches, please, from me ? " 



167 



Quatrains. 

On Hist'ry's pages may be found 
The life-blood of a Nation, dried : 

Each tome, with heroism bound, 
Shows love and valor close allied. 



True manhood copies womanhood 
In noble qualities of mind ; 

The light of hist'ry shows the good 
Not to the sterner sex confined. 



The thirsty earth — her prayer to HeaVn 

regarded — 
Is glad, with voiceful gladness, not retarded 
By aught of what has been : enhanced 

thereby, 
Her joy-pores ope : deliverance is nigh. 



1 68 



Athens' Defection. 



South Nyack, the intellectual, bon ton residence portion 
of Nyack-on Hudson, voted, in 1894, through negligence, 
against the annual appropriation requisite to its citizens en - 
joying the privileges of the free library of the four Nyacks, 
out, subsequently, made up the necessary amount by pri- 
vate subscriptions. 

South Nyack : 

Paradigm of intellectual excellence — 

Quad-Nyack's Hellenic purlieus — 

Who repudiated the spirits of 

Sainte Beuve, Shakespeare, Servetus, Shelley, 

Eulwer, Bacon, Balzac, Bancroft, 

Disraeli, Dana, Darwin, Demosthenes, 

Pope, Plutarch, Poe, Paine, 

Hoke Smith, Pod Dismuke, Dink Botts, 

Jadam Bede, Muley Hassan, Larry Godkin, 

And Col. Abe. Slupsky — 

Sorra the day ! 

Has the buffalo returned to his wallow, 

Or the maudlin owl to her wisdom — 

Which ? 

Were the Library in her bourne, 

169 



The very cobbles of South Nyack 

Would cry out for the " free graft ! " 

Such is blindness ! A cry 

From Macedonian South Nyack : 

'* Come and help us ! v 

But we do n't help — 

N'ary bit ! 

Put up the "squidulum," ye cerebro-fatuous T 

Who voted for light,* to guide 

The blear eyed Bacchanalian home, 

But not to lumine the abject psychic density 

Of non-appreciative souls, 

And in thy grasp the prize is. 

Shades of Marcus Antoninus Aurelius I 

Shall South Nyack claim eminence 

As a foster-mother of teinturiers, 

And list not to the wail for free books ? 

Hardly, Sophelia ! 

Put up the price, O, ye of many stamps, 

And help Nyack to carry the banner ! 



The electric light a ; propriation passed. 
170 



R Retrospect. 



I never see a little child 

But I recall when I was young : 
When childish romp my hours beguiled, 
And Nature's God upon me smiled : 
Before the reign of passions, wild, 

Before Delilah's song was sung. 

Be brave, dear one, before you feel 

The fury of Sin's venom hurled 
At thy pure breast, with intent, real, 
And hatred for thy spotless weal : 
Be strong, ere years of pain reveal 

The wretched, wicked, woful world ! 



.71 



Romping l^hyn?e. 



Oh, the bouncing and the jouncing 
Of the rhyme, of the rhyme ; 

Oh, the rouncing and the flouncing 
Of the rhyme, of the rhyme ! 

There 's a mate for ev'ry word 

In the brain of man that 's stirr'd — 

Oft he rues it afterward. 

When the editor calls " time ! " 

Oh, the rolling and the bowling 
Of the rhyme, of the rhyme ; 
Oh, the souling and cajoling 

Of the rhyme, of the rhyme! 

How the poet oft must eke 

Out a line with ancient Greek — 

Wear his hair long, like a freak — 

'T is sublime ! 't is sublime ! 

Oh, the cooing and the wooing 

Of the rhyme, of the rhyme ; 

172 



Oh, the suing, black-and-bluing, 
Of the rhyme, of the rhyme ! 
How, with many a repetition, 
Rolls the rhythm on its mission — 
Doling out its sad fruition, 
All the time ! all the time ! . 

Oh, the soulful and the doleful 
Of the rhyme, of the rhyme ; 

Oh, the bowlful of "be-joyful" 
Oft behind the flight of rhyme ! 

Wild, erratic Allen Poe 

Drew on Amontillado, 

And he reaped a toper's woe, 
Thro' all time ! thro' all time ! 



Oh, the swishing of and fishing 
For the rhyme, for the rhyme ; 

Oh, the wishing and the squishing 
Of the rhyme, of the rhyme ! 



When the poet's thoughts relax, 
Spectral, stalks the Income Tax — 
And he flees from its cold facts 

T' another clime ! t' another clime ! 



<74 



Surnrner Days fire On tf?e Wane. 



There are signs we can no longer pass in- 
differently by — 
Signs of autumn, fast approaching, shadow- 
ing Summer's last, long sigh. 
Even now, to grace the table of Thanksgiv- 
ing, gourmands gloat 
At the thought that in the barn-yard fatt'n- 

ing is the poly shote. 
A precursor, sure, of fall-time is the 

phcebe's mournful *' tweet ! " 
As he reckons soon of Summer days will be 

but mem'ries, sweet. 
And the fields of bristling stubble, once 

rolled high with lordly grain, 
All emphasize that Summer 
Days 

Are 

On 

The 

Wane. 

i75 



Crickets soon their tireless grace-notes will 
surcease, ere comes the fall : 

And the "jug-o'-rums," in boggy morass,, 
choke their glummy call. 

E'en the " dog-days," low'ring sullen, frown 
glad Summer's smiles to tears : 

And the heated moderation tells that au- 
tumn's column nears. 

Back to haunts that through the Summer 
knew them not, a sun-burned crowd 

Troops from mountain, lake and valley y 
and where Ocean murmurs loud : 

For the days are shorter growing, and the 
shadows on the pane, 

All emphasize that Summer 
Days 

Are 

On 

The 

Wane. 

76 



With a sigh of depth, deep — mournful — 

and a flow of lachrymge, 
Summer girls give o'er their conquests by 

the swelling, tearful sea ; 
And, discarded belt and " bloomers," with 

disgust, true, real, sincere, 
Ribbon -counters hide the shins of beaux of 

Narragansett Pier. 
Soon the leaves, tergiversating color to the 

season's tune, 
Will return to earth the verdure spring-tide 

begged of natal June. 
Thoughts of next Spring's batch of verses, 

driving rhymesters 'most insane, 
All emphasize that Summer 

Days 

Are 

On 

The 

Wane, 



j 77 



When Old Age Comes On. 



When your life is young, and promise makes 

each thought a glad delight, 
And the world seems pure and joyous : all 

unknown is sin-hued blight ; 
Ev'ry waking hour is gladness, ev'ry breath 

is fraught with song, 
And we cannot see why sorrow makes the 

lives of some all wrong; 
All your youthful days are given up to mirth 

and romp and glee, 
And you mind not premonitions of the 

things that are to be : 
But you waken at the moment when your 

past life you must con — 
Prepare for what is coming 

When 

Old 

Age 

Comes 

On. 

178 



Life may seem so full of smiles that tears 
are better when unknown : 

And the thing that time beguiles best cal- 
culated to condone 

For the day when sorrow's pinions cleaved 
the air around your head, 

And the peace of mind of yestermorn that 
morning's sun found dead. 

And you seek relief in worldly things — your 
heart fill with their joy : 

Fast forgetting not a golden moment but 
has its alloy : 

But you turn your eyes to Heaven, with its 
glories your soul don — 

Prepare for what will happen — 
When 

Old 

Age 

Comes 

On. 



179 



E'en Tho' It Be a Cross." 



The stone church fronted on the street, 

In architecture, grand ; 
And many passed, with busy feet, 

To meet life's great demand 
For biead and wine : nor stopped to pray 

In its inviting calm ; 
No time to look to Heav'n had they. 

Nor wish for its sweet balm. 
The golden-glinting cross a-top 

The buttresses of gray, 
Rose high oVr fact'ry, hill and shop — 

Its lesson to convey 
To souls of men, whose lust for gold 

Shut out all love for God. 
The church pile heaped its ouilines, bold, 

Aloft, on sacred sod. 

Without the door a hydrant stood, 
With tin cup hanging near, 

1 80 



And many of the brotherhood 

Of mankind halted here 
To quench the thirst, by heat begot, 

Or midnight's drunken crave, 
Then dropped the cup and quick forgot 

The benefit it gave. 
A " tramp," in rags and tatters clothed, 

By chance betook him there, 
And drank the cup he often loathed. 

For want of better fare. 
The clear, cold liquor satisfied 

The burning flame within : 
It cleared his head and quelled the tide 

Of thoughts, black, dark with sin. 

And, as he turned his eyes above, 

A gleam from off the cross 
Brought back to mem'ry mother-love — 

The old life, and its loss. 
The prayer his mother murmur' d low, 

When bowed he at her knee : 

1S1 



" As 't is in Heav n, even so 

Be it to mine and me ! " 
Came to his mind, thro' mists of tears, 

That blinded, as they fell : 
How fruitless, since, the sadd'ned years. 

The " tramp," alone, could tell. 
O'ercome, he bowed his head and cried : 

" Oh, God ! that, ere I broke 
My mother's heart, I, too, had died ! " 

Then sang he, as he spoke: 

" Nearer, my God, to Thee, 

Nearer to Thee ; 
E'en tho' it be a cross 

That raiseth me ! " 



182 



Ii'Envoi. 

Dear reader — comrade in distress ! — relief 

Is thine and mine : for here 
The finis is. I add this extra sheaf 

That parting be less drear. 

If I, perchance, have struck responding 
chord 

To that which knows thy breast, 
And, in the unity of that concord, 

Pleased thee, these lines are bles't ! 

If aught of interest has marked my work : 
If heart-response 't has stirr'd : 

If joy, sincere, perusing, lay a-lurk 
For thee, I bless each word ! 



183 



